What’s it like to be in a Huge Chapter?
 

I received my sorority’s national alumnae magazine, and they always feature of list of the chapters that made quota at the most recent recruitment, and it lists what quota was at each chapter’s campus. The range of quotas is incredibly broad- from some in the low teens to others in the triple digits. When I was in college, I don’t think our whole chapter even had 100 members.

What’s it like to be in a sorority that large- with a pledge/new member class of around hundred? I would imagine this makes the total number of members somewhere around 400? What are the advantages and disadvantages to having a chapter that big?

I have the unique position of being in a chapter that went from small to large over my time in the house, and it was an interesting transition. My PC was <30, and the PC the following year was 60 and then up to an average around 70-80 for the past 2 years.

Advantages: helps make events more successful, always have volunteers for things, always have people to cheer you on at events, easier for you to find a personality that matches yours, always have lots of ideas to choose from, recruitment is less stressful, etc.

Disadvantages: events can be like herding cats, sometimes there can be too many ideas, can be hard to get to know everyone, drama is more likely

Good thing IUHoosiergirl88 answered. For most people, it would be like when I interviewed identical twins.

"What's it like to be identical twins?"
"I dunno, I don't know what it's like to be a single kid."

I was in a small chapter as an undergrad, but our recolonized version has more than quadruple the number we had and will grow even more this fall.
One problem - no place big enough in town to host a sit-down banquet.:(

I do think there must be a point of diminishing return. I can definitely see the benefits of large chapters, but once you practically have to rent the football stadium to hold chapter every week, I think you're going to have trouble with member retention, and I can picture having trouble getting girls to step up because there's always someone else who will.

It would be interesting to know what the chapters at the 100+ pledge class schools wish their quotas were. I feel like much over 50 and you've got a jump in issues that the 30-50 member pledge classes don't have, like being able to hold meetings without a microphone, being at least in the ballpark of similar size with fraternities, having a reasonable percentage get to live in the house, etc.

I don't think that the second follows from the first. When I was at Illinois, quota was usually around 50, but total was only 145, and the biggest chapters were in the 160's. I would be interested to hear from some of the SEC folks, but I think that retention may be a little more trouble in such big chapters.

My chapter was around 25 at its largest while I was there! My pledge class was 7; we initiated 6.

I've often wondered how one gets to know all one's sisters in a huge chapter - and if you don't get to know them, then what makes the chapter different from any other club. I'm sure there are plenty of things, and different things to worry about (ever try to hold a social when only 20 people are playing dues?!).

I do know that I would not have gone Greek at a school with a larger Greek system. It's just not me. So I would have missed a lot.

I think that, in a large chapter, living in the house/dorm is a much bigger part of the experience. I felt closest, in college, to the women who lived in the house at the same time I did, and further, who lived on my floor.

I think I disagree with this - to a degree.

Chapters have personalities. If you have a chapter of 200, and 40-50 of them are involved in athletics, and most are fans of/cheerleaders for a nearby team, it stands to reason the chapter will do things to support their sisters, and the programming is going to be slanted toward sports/athletics. Likewise with other endeavors; it needn't be sports.

Will you find friends? Of course. Will the symbols and ritual be meaningful? Of course. But chapter personalities may not fit, though the sorority certainly would.

These things are certainly more pronounced with a smaller group, but they exist in all organizations. Like begets like - that's how humans associate.

Which is why I have problems with those who castigate women who say a chapter "just isn't a fit". It may not be as common as using that phrase for "it's not one I wanted", and I can certainly be convinced by those who have experienced it significantly more than I that it happens, but I cannot make myself jump to that conclusion.

There is no way that, in a chapter of 200 women, enough are going to be cheerleaders, or in athletics, or band members, or campus crusade, or any single activity to pull the entire chapter in that direction. Sure, women involved in an activity may attract other women in that activity, but often the hardcore members of X activity are too busy to be part of the chapter's leadership as well.

Now, obviously the historically Jewish chapters attract mostly Jewish women at certain schools, but that has a) a long history of discrimination behind it and b) a lot to do with Jewish social networks in high school. That said, I think a non-Jewish woman could be perfectly happy in most of those chapters anyway.

I think even with huge chapters you can definitely give off a certain vibe during recruitment that may make a PNM feel that she wouldn't fit in. But we know as actives and alumnae that recruitment chapter persona =/= chapter persona, at least not all the time. Chapters can be selecting their recruiters for either the image they have, the image they want, or who they feel can win over the women the best (or a combination of the above).

Ex: A 200 person chapter can have 75 women recruiting. They decide to pick their cheerleaders, their sports team members, and their best recruiters to be on the floor for recruitment. PNM Annie sees them and thinks 'oh I'm not athletic, I could never fit in with this chapter' and goes about her merry way. What she doesn't know is that the other 125 women may have never seen the inside of a gym, don't care about sports, and trip over their own two feet just walking to class (think like Mia Thermopolis from Princess Diaries) but are great women and would get along well with Annie.

Another point that I think is salient is the women that reflect the chapter persona (i.e. the 'athletes' in this example) may be the ones in positions of power in the group, and not being 'in' with them might result in fewer chair positions, being on less committees, and ultimately not standing a chance at running for officer/executive board. Certainly in any group their are subgroups (I prefer this word to cliques, I hate the connotation) and some tend to hold the strings of power more than others and sometimes PNMs can see this. That is, they know that if they join ABC house, they're not going to be in with the 'in crowd' and may feel that they won't have the same experience because of it.

Okay, I'll buy that you can give off a certain vibe during recruitment, but generally, most chapters try to pair PNM's with people who they will click with. Even if a chapter chooses its best recruiters, and a PNM is more introverted, I just don't buy that there are too many women who think "man, this chapter is too cool for me".

It may be different at other schools, but we have a very strict '1st active to 1st PNM in line' rule. There is no picking and choosing PNMs. I'm sure it happens to a degree (especially with very desirable PNMs) but for us you can get major infractions for this.

And I don't know, there were certain chapters that I knew about that I was too intimidated to even go to their informal parties because of their persona. I just thought that I'd never fit in. Now having met sisters of that chapter at Panehellenic events I know differently, but I still have no idea whether they would have given me a bid.

Even for pref? Do you know why this is? I've never heard of a rule like this before.

One right here! There were a few chapters that were definitely too cool for me. And it definitely didn't feel as though they were pairing us with girls we matched with. Then again, I have no clue what happened at pref.

For pref you can be paired, but by then you've either cut or been cut by a lot of chapters. And by then you've probably also formed an opinion about the chapter anyway. Although obviously pref can change that.

I was intimidated by certain chapters as well, believe me. But I really don't think that, had you been invited to pref only by chapters that were "too cool", you would have dropped out of recruitment. I know I would not have.

ETA: I didn't mean that to sound snippy, or be directed at MW personally, I just meant that rush impressions are only rush impressions.

Oh, I get it (and you definitely don't sound snippy)! But I would have probably been uncomfortable at some point--either pref, bid night or in the weeks (or months, even) after. Rush impressions are tough, but there were some chapters where I felt like I was speaking a foreign language when I mentioned how much I love Doctor Who or Hot In Cleveland or [insert off-the-wall interest]. On the flip side, these girls talked about the Weekender (big trip upstate that happens once every other year) or football games or things that just made me feel out of place. I guess "too cool" is probably the wrong phrase, but just...not on the same wavelength? Our sensibilities just didn't click.

Of course, if I'd been invited back to those chapters, there's always a chance I would have found someone who clicked with me at some point, but the chapters made the decision on this one. :)

[And, as an aside, I wouldn't have dropped out of rush. I wanted to make things work however possible.]

This kinda makes me chuckle.

I am an alum of a chapter that was 25ish people at its largest during my four years. My pledge class was 9.

I remember looking at the largest sorority (our neighbors) at 75 and thinking "how the heck can they know eachother!!!"

With the perspective of age, I understand a lot more now.

But when I was working at Oklahoma, I was just SHOCKED by the size of the houses, the size of the chapters...I think our tiny little house could have been a garage to the chapter houses there. KKG's annex was about the size of our entire house. It really hit home how different the Greek experience can be across the country.

Different, yes, but there is SO much that's the same. I served as a regional officer 30 years after I pledged, but still had a great deal of common experience with the girls in the chapter at the time.

One of my chapters was down to 17 members on a campus where most of the sororities were around 50 members. Of those 17, 12 were seniors and were going to graduate in the spring. All the members were worried sick that this was the last year their chapter would be there. They spent a lot of time dreaming of what they could do "if only we had more members."

God bless her, the Greek advisor on that campus took the bull by the horns and organized a special recruitment just for them. She even ordered every sorority AND fraternity to not badmouth our group for the entire semester! (It was a very small campus!)

On pledging day, the chapter added about 40 members overnight.

Were the members thrilled? No.

Almost immediately, they were complaining about how the "new" girls did things. It's human nature - we resist change.

Huge collegiate chapters suck.

That is all.

*running*

^LOL. Are you saying NPHC chapters specifically or all large chapters?

It's not an experience I would have wanted, but then again I didn't want to go to a school of 25,000 people either.

Are there any schools with very large chapters, but no housing? I would love to hear what THAT experience is like.

psusue, we have that rule too. So when we line up to the door, we LINE UP IN THE ORDER OF THE PNMS. Maybe the rule you reference forbids this, but it's pretty much the way it works where I am. It can get thrown off when someone quits at the last second but generally works pretty well.

Where I'm at the top is 175, lowest is half that. I've never wondered about that though, pretty interesting considering they want housing so bad

according the irishpipes thread pepperdine total is 67

I'm looking at "140" and thinking "that's not that many."
LOL!:p

When I was recruiting for the first time, we were given PNM's names and called them out. So I would go to the door and say "Hi! I'm WCsweet<3 and I'd like to welcome Patty PNM to KD's open house day." The second year I was a rho gamma and the PNMs were lined up by number (more or less alphabetically unless you signed up late). The sisters were lined inside the house according to where the assigned PNM would be in line outside the house. So Patty PNM would be 27th from the door, I would be 27th in line inside the house. The rho gams (minimum of three at every house) would have a few by the door (to give an attendance report to the house so lines weren't messed up) and at least one near the end of the line so we could catch girls quitting at the last minute.

My senior year of college chapter average was 158 members. I loved it. The only problem was learning all the new members names and keeping them straight. While I would say that my chapter could find a niche for just about everyone going through recruitment, there were/would be some that would fit better. We had artists, athletes, leaders, and etc. However, in my chapter (and others on campus) we definitely had more members in one area than others or had interests that were similar. So yes Patty PNM could love juggling pears and we might have a sister who also loved to juggle pears, but the majority of sisters wouldn't. The sister would likely have other interests that fit the chapter (perhaps not), but if pears is the only thing the two talk about during recruitment or if that is basically the only commonality between the PNM and the chapter then it seems like she would really only have a connection to a few girls in the chapter.

Going back to recruitment and matching women for certain days. I know there were two houses (minimum just two that jump out at me) that I grew to dislike because of who they matched me with. We had almost similar interests (they were a cheerleader I was a dancer), but it just wasn't the same and it grew annoying. That chapter is a wonderful and I know many women who are my friends in it, however, I wouldn't have gotten along with the majority of the chapter.

I do think that in a large chapter there will be niches for just about any PNMs. However, it could be relatively small where as in a different chapter the niche might be bigger.

Hmm, maybe other chapters do this but I know we certainly don't. There just isn't enough time between rounds with MS, especially during open houses. For example, during open houses it's three nights and all 800 or so PNMs must visit every chapter (and there are 19 chapters) so it breaks down to about 10 parties the first two nights (give or take, it's all a blur) and then like 4 or 5 on the third. So about 24-25 (20 minute) parties to accommodate everyone with 10 minute breaks in between. It's pretty much madness. Sometimes we would barely all be back in line, period, as the PNMs were walking in the door. This was especially true if PNMs dawdled to leave.

Now I kind of want to ask friends in other chapters if they matched PNMs to sisters but I really thought that was verboten. Maybe I'm wrong, but like I said, it would have been insane for any night but maybe second rounds or pref. There are just so many PNMs and so many drop out (almost half) that I can't imagine it.

Doesn't Auburn have dorm suites? I assume for this discussion we're classifying that as "unhoused."

As an alumna/advisor from a large SEC chapter (Univ of Arkansas) and a mother of two daughters who were active in the past 5 years, I can tell you that dealing with the issues of a 'super size' chapter can be difficult. Like many things, though, once you get used to it, it becomes 'how we've always done it' and just 'what we do.' And just like other smaller chapters, the girls in the chapter think their chapter is the greatest thing since sliced bread.

It helps that all chapters on campus are in the same predicament (all houses this fall took a quota of/or around 135) The entire chapter is at the 325 mark. (the good news is that we are adding two groups this fall!)

Big issues - getting your national people to realize your chapter requires some flexibility in following hardline mandates. For example, my biggest beef, initiation. The 6 week new member period puts added pressure on the pledge class and the members to bond, find big sisters, etc. How do 130+ girls get to know each other in such a short time? How do the members get to know them? PLUS, the biggie, scheduling initiation around big campus events (SEC football, hello!) is a near impossibility. Any requests that have been made to extend the new member period by two weeks (to get closer to Thanksgiving and away from football season) have been refused. This small step would make a huge difference for a large chapter like ours. Even making some minor adjustments in the initiation ceremony would help but that has not been allowed either. (I am sure you can imagine how very, very tough it is to get through all of the initiation ritual in a timely fashion.)

With regard to finding ways for the girls to get to know each other, the chapter came up with a great idea (and one I believe was also done at other houses). In addition to the regular new member meetings, the new member chair chose Owl Leaders to function as mentors and small group leaders. The pledge class was then divided into small groups of 12 or so. Each week the Owl Leaders held an event/activity for a different small group. The members of the small groups also changed each week allowing the new members to get to know a different group from their class each week. They went bowling, ate pizza, made sundaes, hung out at a members apt and watched movies, etc. This really worked well.

I think retention is not as big of a problem as you would think. In fact, in percentages, it is probably only slightly higher than a chapter about half its size. Even when I pledged, and the whole chapter was about 125, we still lost a girl or two or three each year.

I could expound on many facets of this size chapter - and I might end up sounding negative - so I won't continue because that would not be fair to these wonderful chapters. Suffice it to say, that this size chapter is her own special breed!

BUT...I do want to stress that the sisterhood, the funny memories, the camaraderie, etc are all still there. Sure, not everyone saw the house mom back her car into the dumpster and all the trash fell on her car, but you heard about it, it's your house, she's your house mom, and pretty soon you are re-telling it like you were right there!

Have you all (i.e. the Arkansas Panhel you all) thought of asking the school to be the "bad guy"? That is, asking them to request that groups not schedule major events like initiation during football season. I'm sure they could come up with some BS excuse as to why that would sound good and would take the pressure off.

And by the way, I didn't take your "rant" as negative. It was interesting to hear the challenges that most chapters don't think of. I'm chuckling to myself thinking of back at my initiation when we held it in the middle of the night. But you'd either have to start before dark or end after sunrise! But most of our stuff that was time consuming was chapter specific and went away when initiation had to happen during daylight hours.

I can appreciate the various nationals wanting to stick to a fixed system, but when you are talking 5 times larger pledge classes than the national average (I'm guessing a national average of around 30, but it's probably closer to 20), I think some accommodation can be made. 6 weeks plus 1 week for every 20th new member beyond 50? That seems fair and something they can stick to without worrying about hazing or slowly edging back to semester long pledge periods.

It will be interesting to see how it goes at Arkansas when your pledge classes start to shrink back down again and how the shrinking pains go. And is anyone guessing 2 more chapters come on in 2014 or 15?

Dubais and 33 -

You both bring up good suggestions! I cannot speak for Panhell - I think they are busy with their own issues to take on anymore. We only recently (within the past 5 years) managed to get them to do away with compounding, yes COMPOUNDING, fines that were levied against sorority members who had active PNM Facebook friends during recruitment. That could mean that one girl(or in KKgs case, the house) could accumulate several thousand dollars in fines for EACH GIRL. Thankfully, that rule was thrown out - but not before it had been in place for about three years.

Truthfully, AR Panhell really does 'get it' with regard to these large houses. They work well with the groups and everyone helps each other. For example, it has been an all out effort to bring new groups on campus. Every house on campus wanted this, begged for this. I can only hope we work to bring another one or two on soon. We had 5 present and two were chosen, so others are willing to come on despite the cost.

The national people? Well, I really don't think they do 'get it' as much as those who are dealing with it daily. I am not implying that they don't care. It is just a hard thing to wrap your mind around if you don't work with it all the time. Again, to be fair, I do think the chokehold is loosening some, and as I write this, I can acknowledge that possibly national experienced the same growing pains that we did and are now working to adjust.

With regard to any 'shrinking pains,' I don't think we will really have any to speak of. The growing happened to quickly that we can drop down with ease. My oldest pledged in '06 - had 75 in her class. My youngest pledged in '09 with 95. And this class of '11 had 135. So, if we just dropped to the '09 number, it would be a breath of fresh air.

Could you do initiation like graduation? Inspiration together Monday, Liberal Arts majors initiation Tuesday and Science/Engineering majors Wednesday? Bigs go on the day their little is initiating and everyone else could sign up for one day or the other? Fancy celebration Dinner Wednesday night at the house? It would mean more work for the Rituals chair and girls with speaking parts, but it would make it easier to find a location.

I don't even think of 65 a pledge class as huge anymore but I guess it is.... : P

A good idea, but probably wouldn't work because that would create problems for the part of ritual that involves alumnae participation.

They made some adjustments this year that helped but it is still, as you can imagine, an exhausting experience. I have sworn off attending any initiations after participating for my two daughters! It's just too much for this old woman! :)

Without going into too much detail, a variation of that is actually what they asked for a few years back and were denied. This year, they broke it into shifts but nothing happened simultaneously. Again, I do think National is easing up a bit, but I am sure they see themselves as(national) are also fighting for the integrity of the ritual as well.